Alex Mitchell

“All these empty buildings, they used to be factories…Ain’t nothin’ here no more, cos they mailed it overseas…All these empty houses that used to have families, all that’s left are ghosts and a million memories….” -Alex Mitchell)

“This is not about class warfare, this is about corporate welfare…”(-Colin LaVaute, Decadent Nation)

“The riot squad is restless, they need somewhere to go…”(-Bob Dylan)

“What has changed is that we no longer even affirm the principle [of equality under the law]. It is common to find arguments from political and media elites explicitly arguing that elites should not be subjected to the rule of law.”(-Glenn Greenwald)

“I think that they have their eyes open, and more and more people are seeing the scales fall from their eyes as well. The Occupy Wall Street people are saying, first, that there`s no accountability on Wall Street. They wrecked our economy. Years ago, they took a healthy economy and they gave us 9 percent, 10 percent or more unemployment. And they destroyed 20 percent of our national wealth in the course of just 18 months, from the middle of 2007 to the end of 2008. They destroyed 20 percent of our national wealth accumulated over the course of two centuries, and nobody`s been prosecuted for it. Nobody`s been indicted. Nobody`s been convicted. So, first, there`s no accountability.

The second thing is that they`ve created a system that is enormously unequal. And the result of that is people are struggling to find a job to pay their bills, to pay their rent, to pay their credit card bills. According to Wikipedia, there are only five countries in the entire planet that are more unequal than the United States, in the distribution of our wealth. That`s a system that Wall Street created, that Wall Street maintains, and that Wall Street enforces.

And the way that they enforce it is the third gripe. The third gripe is Wall Street controls and dominates our political system. One party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street, and the other party caters to Wall Street all too much. So, people got into the situation right now where they feel that the system is completely unresponsive, and they`re driven deeper and deeper into debt and misery.” (-Alan Grayson)

“Not being here, and watching from afar, what took place here was really horrifying — to see this, in this country. … I think all of us want to send our best wishes, our prayers, our good karma, everything that we can muster to Scott so that he is better and well. … Let’s have 30 seconds of silence in honor of Scott Olsen and our hope that he will recover quickly from his injuries.” (– Michael Moore at #OccupyOakland)

“Last night, Occupy Chicago peaceably assembled outside Chicago’s Thompson Center, to hold a vigil in honor of US Marine Scott Olsen, brutally assaulted by the city of Oakland while standing in solidarity with peaceful protesters there.

At 10:15 PM, approximately fifty Illinois state troopers and Chicago City Police marched upon Occupy Chicago’s vigil, ordering the demonstrators out of the public space. Police were equipped with K-9 units and gasmasks. Occupiers were holding candles. We moved to the sidewalk and continued our vigil there.” ( -Jacob Klippenstein and Mark Panozzo at Occupy Chicago)

“Nine years ago this country went down a path that has been calamitous for our people, for our soldiers, and for the Iraqi civilians. I led the effort then to oppose the Iraq war resolution, and I also investigated the supposed reasons we were told this war was necessary. We found that there was no proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction nor the capability of attacking the United States of America. In short, the war in Iraq was based on lies.

“Nine years later, over a millions innocent Iraqis lost their lives, thousands of U.S. troops who love this country sacrificed their lives, tens of thousands of troops were injured, and we have spent over $3 trillion of our tax dollars. ”(-Dennis Kucinich)

“It’s enough that people just get up off the couch and get involved and stand up for this country and stand up for your fellow citizens and quit being divided by those in power who have sought to keep working people fighting each other instead of coming together.” (– Michael Moore)

‎”This is not a war zone. These are unarmed people it does not make you tough to hurt these people” (- Sgt. Shamar Thomas to violent NYPD attacking peaceful Occupy Wall St. folks)

“In a society like this, it is hard for those of a sensitive, or intelligent nature to stay sane. Surrounded on all flanks by the contented and the deluded, who sunbathe beneath satellites of cynical lies and twisted half-truths concocted by the rich and powerful…” (-Mark Manning)

‎”I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one, even at the cost of your life.” (-Mahatma Gandhi)

“The media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly.” (-Noam Chomsky)

“But to acknowledge that our highest political officials are felons (which is what people are, by definition, who break our laws) or war criminals (which is what people are, by definition, who violate the laws of war) is to threaten the system of power, and that is unthinkable. Above all else, media figures are desperate to maintain the current power structure, as it is their role within it that provides them with prominence, wealth, and self-esteem. Their prime mandate then becomes protecting and defending Washington, which means attacking anyone who would dare suggest that the government has been criminal at its core. The members of the political and media establishment do not join forces against the investigations and prosecutions because they believe that nothing bad was done. On the contrary, they resist accountability precisely because they know there was serious wrongdoing — and they know they bear part of the culpability for it. The consensus mantra that the only thing that matters is to ‘make sure it never happens again’ is simply the standard cry of every criminal desperate for escape: I promise not to do it again if you don’t punish me this time. And the Beltway battle cry of ‘look to the future, not the past!’ is what all political power systems tell their subjects to do when they want to flush their own crimes down the memory hole.

In the long run, immunity from legal accountability ensures that criminality and corruption will continue. Vesting the powerful with license to break the law guarantees high-level lawbreaking; indeed, it encourages such behavior. One need only look at what’s happened in the United States over the last decade to see the proof.” (-Glenn Greenwald)

“America is waking up to what was built while it slept: private companies have hired away its police (JPMorgan Chase gave $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation); the federal Department of Homeland Security has given small municipal police forces military-grade weapons systems; citizens’ rights to freedom of speech and assembly have been stealthily undermined by opaque permit requirements. “Suddenly, America looks like the rest of the furious, protesting, not-completely-free world. Indeed, most commentators have not fully grasped that a world war is occurring. But it is unlike any previous war in human history: for the first time, people around the world are not identifying and organizing themselves along national or religious lines, but rather in terms of a global consciousness and demands for a peaceful life, a sustainable future, economic justice, and basic democracy. Their enemy is a global ‘corporatocracy’ that has purchased governments and legislatures, created its own armed enforcers, engaged in systemic economic fraud, and plundered treasuries and ecosystems.
Around the world, peaceful protesters are being demonized for being disruptive. But democracy is disruptive. Martin Luther King, Jr., argued that peaceful disruption of ‘business as usual’ is healthy, because it exposes buried injustice, which can then be addressed.” (-Naomi Wolf)

NEW AMERICA….

Flash grenades, tear gas, rubber bullets, bean-bag bullets, concussion grenades, flash bombs, sound cannons, pepper spray, and “paint-ball like objects known as pepper-balls”, are being senselessly deployed on Occupy Wall St. solidarity protesters in Oakland, “under the suspicion of unlawful assembly”. The dubious and overpaid media-whores of cable-tv always tell us we’re “free”, and that the U.S. military invasions of Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan, and Libya, etc., etc., are keeping us “free”, while the police state forcefully cracks down on peaceful dissent—wounding even veterans of these criminal foreign oil wars. This Wall St. owned two-party dictatorship monitors our communications and all movements; routinely tasers elderly, young, even pregnant citizens; and feels up our women and children at the airports. American citizens are considered guilty, until proven faithfully complicit to the plutocrats, by some violent gestures against unarmed civilians. The consolidated monopolies’ pundit-class always insist they don’t comprehend the Occupy Movement’s simple, declarative sentences: “Tax the super-rich, end the wars, cease torturing, and hold Wall Street shyster’s accountable for gambling the nation into this depression”. Meanwhile, the Iraq veteran seriously wounded Tuesday night at “Occupy Oakland” sustained minor brain damage and has been rendered unable to speak, and these brutal Oakland robo-cops all say they are “just following orders”. You’ve all seen the starched white shirts in NYC. How they manhandle unarmed, peaceful, women protesters. Virginia State Police brought in bulldozers at about 1 a.m. Monday morning to clear out an encampment of Occupy Richmond protesters. We cable-tv watching zombies continue casting votes for radical right-wing billionaires, Kissinger go-fer’s, oil barons, C.I.A. operatives, and globalist loonies, expecting something to change. America looks more like the West Bank-with the bulldozers, check-points, and scary storm-troopers, everyday. PFC Bradley Manning is still being indefinitely detained-denied access to human rights advocates, kept in solitary confinement, forced to stand nude, under faux-liberal, Obama, while the B.P./Halliburton execs responsible for the ecocide oil spill in the Gulf are already being allowed to drill again. Torturers(!!!), and those who lied us into multiple wars of aggression, are living in luxury. On talk-shows and book tours. The jails are filled with innocent pot-smokers, another one is arrested every forty-six seconds. Middle-class, tax-paying demonstrators are being bruised and bloodied by the bankster’s corporate-gestapo. The Discovery channel sensationalizes SWAT teams and DEA agents-mercenaries and prison guards.

Most of us, at least those of us, not strung-out on fat white guy corporate-media, we all know who the real terrorists are. Who kicks in peasant family’s doors in Afghanistan? The profit-driven U.S. war machine. Who kicks down peasant family’s doors in the USA? The over-funded drug-war gestapo. Makes ya wanna flee to some cabin in the woods, but no one’s even safe around the campfire. Youtube the “Rainbow Family Gathering police raids”. Violence is all the privatized police state produces, anymore. America’s only product. Violence is their business. They’re trying to incite more violence, by violating the Constitution, brutally attacking peacefully-dissenting assemblies of free speechers-in Oakland and Denver, in Chicago and Atlanta, in Nashville and Boston. The banker oligarchs and their newest police-state arm, the DHS, are telling jack-booted cops to clear the protests. As Bam from Dogs D’Amour says about the disgusting bully violence in Oakland: “Sack the Mayor and charge the police with attempted murder!” We need to immediately impeach each of these crackdown mayors, and police chiefs–recall ‘em! We, the people, have no confidence in smug city-council officials, who casually repress the will of the people, with militarized police-state brutality. The 400 wealthiest Americans now own more than the “lower” 150 MILLION Americans put together. Last year, the biggest five oil companies alone scored $76 billion in profits. Last year, the oil industry received more than $4 billion in tax breaks. They can’t even audit the Pentagon, but unfathomable amounts of money are gone-missing, clandestinely paid out to despots, mercenaries, opium lords, death-squads, black-op’s, weapons dealers. Death Inc., the death-lobby. Our biggest industry.

Mitt Romney, whose fortune, totaling as much as a quarter of a billion dollars, dwarfs those of his rivals; Jon M. Huntsman Jr., whose father owns a global chemical company; Newt Gingrich, a successful author; Herman Cain, a businessman who reports earnings of over $1.2 million; and Rick Santorum, the former senator, who took in over $700,000 last year, are all solidly in the 1 percent, as measured by assets, income, or both. The wealth is not limited to Republicans. Though President Obama was not in the 1 percent in 2006, before his entry to presidential politics, he earned between $1.8 million and $6.8 million last year, largely from book royalties. Those guys live in ivory towers, read teleprompted talking points, devised by war profiteer think-tanks. They’re all jonesing to start another war on more brown skinned poor people in oil rich Iran. Same old playbook. “Weapons Of Mass Destruction”. “War On Terror”. “Humanitarian Interventions”. Blah blah blah.

Meanwhile, down here on Main St. USA, the everyday people of the ninety-nine percent are under heavy assault. Every day brings another savage night raid on a peaceful demonstration. Chantrell Smiley, 21, of Occupy Denver, testifies: “It was just chaos. This wasn’t necessary. My friend got hit with rubber bullets in the face. He was screaming and bleeding, then they Maced him. We’re being peaceful. We don’t want to be harmed. They came through and took everything down — our food, our blankets, everything’s gone.” Consolidated-media buries these stories, or frames them as “clashes between protesters and police”, instead of accurately reporting that riot-cops are violently attacking peaceful tax-payers with the bi-partisan support of bank-owned elected officials. This shit is appalling, unacceptable, all the politicians need to be held accountable in local elections, for refusing to keep their nightstick crazy, bloodthirsty, rogue cops in line. These sociopathic sadists make me want to leave this country. Sometimes, the pigs just get you down. Strange Days have found us.

“Fuck the government and fuck the wars/fuck the rightwing tv whores/fuck the rich and corporate cops/somebody’s gotta make the whole thing stop!”

Free-wheelin’, viking-horned libertine, Alex Mitchell—the Canadian born, old-school punk rock, outlaw-biker, voodoo priest, freakadelic essayist/author, black dreadlocked, Downtown Bohemian, chrome-plated poet, and blues-metal honcho, who led the gritty, streetwise, return to real rock’n'roll movement, amidst all that awful, Poison-pink, fluff-metal; and who probably kick-started the whole hot roddin’, hell-raisin’, king-kong, flaming skull, winged eyeballs, underground music scene of the nineties, is back in war-paint, to generously share his more recently received or retrieved insights and illuminations, arcane and incandescent visions, from his ethereal explorations on the other side of the Wolf Mountain. Roll over Eddie Spaghetti and tell Corey Parks the news! Alex Mitchell’s songs are like black velvet, black light posters, come to life. Like something weird and wild leaped off the side of a seventies van. Like Frazetta and the Brothers Hildebrandt. CAPTAIN ZAPPED’S music is a stewing, scalding hot, creole gumbo of The Doors, the Cult, Motorhead, Hendrix, Stooges, T.Rex, Seventies Alice Cooper, Mott The Hoople, Thin Lizzy, John Lee Hooker, that nasty, 13th Floor Elevators side of ZZ Top. Edgar Winter. Derringer. Black Flag, Zodiac Mindwarp, Thee Hypnotics, and the Clash. They got all that bubbling in their home-made, fully-organic, hallucinogenic witches brew. If you miss the real music of yesteryear, “Heavy For Your Head” is a crash-course in badass motherfuckery. Burnt offerings to the thunder gods. White wizard, Billy Tsounis, shows predictable old pay-checks like Slash and Billy Duffy how to turn fire into gold. Gold into lightning. Lightning into fire-breathing, daredevil centerfolds. His guitar playing is like some long-lost Brotherhood Of Eternal Love micro-dot manifesto that got mean-spiriitedly confiscated by the man. He’s a really exceptional guitarist, probably as influenced by Evil Kenievil, and Jack Kirby, as Marc Bolan and Tommy Bolin. His solos are the sonic equivalent of vintage pinball art. I’m so thrilled he and Alex Mitchell joined forces, because their songwriting is as epic and inspired as almost any of our fave icons from the golden years, only, they’re cranking out cinematic jams pulsating with the full blast volume of right now. Don’t cry about the past. Get this CD and start living again. Are you gonna be there at the love-in? This is road-trip music. Highway acceleration. Get your motor down to the protest. This is way, way, better than nearly all the Doors albums. Amazing. Probably the second best album he’s ever done, and I liked all of ‘em. Easily as good as Iggy’s “Instinct” and the Cult’s “Electric”, or Buck Cherry’s first album. Exactly what you’ve been yearning to hear! If you get a hold of this disc, you won’t need to talk about how Axl needs Izzy & Adler; or how you wish Eddie and Alex hadn’t kicked Michael Anthony out of Van Halen; or blah, blah, blah, Steven Tyler, or any of that. It just won’t matter anymore, because these righteous and holy Medicine-Men, Alex and Billy, deliver everything but the Orange Sunshine. It’s all here, fully present, and aglow. On a plane with cocaine. Full-Tilt. Extra Ball.

”Shake That Pussy” is the good times, party anthem of the year. Do you remember that old video of Bo Diddley and George “Now You Funny, Too!” Thorogood shootin’ pool? Alex and Billy sure do. You pint-swilling anti-socials, outlaw peace activists, degenerate hoodlums, psychotic goth chicks, non-violent drug offenders, transient agitators, exotic dancers, motorcycle cowpunks, and spiralling hellions are gonna go wild for CAPTAIN ZAPPED! “Spaceship” is like Mitchell’s drone-age version of the “Crystal Ship”, for the insurgent, liberty or death generation. The healing, cure-all, antidote to all those heiress unreality shows and atrocious techno-acts.

This dude can croon like Bing, and Danzig, he can write an outlaw ballad to rival Haggard and Kristofferson. He has penned some intensely entertaining novels, and he summons forth surrealistic visions of burntout paradise like a Blake, or Ginsberg, Leary, or Kesey. He’s a deep-cat. A wise-man. Our very own Doctor Strange. My generation’s Jim Morrison, it seems like Shaman Al has been having pow-wows with the spirits of defiant peace chiefs, like Bill Hicks and Bon Scott, Abbie Hoffman, and Sitting Bull. Perhaps, as a result of continuing to work for a living, Alex knows exactly who he is, and doesn’t try to chase trends, or fool the fans into thinking he’s Kanye West, or Marilyn Manson. Some of his former colleagues-you know, the big-shots with the Donald Trump complexes, and power-hawk Gene Simmons money-worshipping, they just look like outdated, self-obsessed, narcissistic, botox-buffoons, in all that gold, and the Jay-Z athletic wear. One of those too rich to be good megalomaniacs is so lost, it looks like he wants to be Kid Rock, who’s neither authentic B-Boy, nor authentic redneck. It’s sad, seein’ once talented characters lose the plot so completely, and become so baffled and befuddled by money and power. Who can relate to any of those festival playing, violence-inciting, corporate metal-dicks, still trying to imitate Nine Inch Nails, twenty years too late? Maybe those cops in Oakland.

Me, I’m relieved to know that at least, the old spark-lord, Alex Mitchell’s moon-baying, rebel yell is still absolutely alive and well, and he and Billy have answered the Dictator’s call, to come save rock’n'roll. These guys still remember how to kick out the jams, motherfuckers, and they don’t seem the least bit phased by Slipknot or Eminem. They ain’t forgot nothing. This is what real rock’n'roll sounds like. What will impress you most, upon hearing it, is the musical versatility and imagination employed all throughout CAPTAIN ZAPPED’S music. Something will remind you of Ry Cooder, and then Rose Tattoo, the Sweet, Roxy Music, or the Damned, and then, you’ll be transported back to the County Fair. Or the skeezy Hollywood hotel. Or your old hometown Dairy Whip, juvenile detention hall, or hammerhead dive, all the way back in your own misspent youth. It’s like time travellin’! Captain Zapped even have a song called, “Time Machine”! Bad mischief, strange cravings, tarnished halos…the desert sky…California stars…revolution dune-buggies, fuzzy nostalgia, delirium, indian summer…Patchoulli splashed, clove-smoking, nose ringed, anarchist girls named Sparrow. Let’s siphon up some gas and get this show on the road. Brother Wolf, and Sister Moon, your time has come! Get this album, like, NOW. Honestly, as soon as you possibly can. It’s good for ya. Strip-joint anthems and windows down at sunset psychedelia.

There are some other absolutely killer live bands, still stompin’ the boards, like the Hangmen, Keith Morris’ h/c band–OFF, the Jim Jones Revue, and Michael Monroe, but it’s been a long, long, lonely, lonely time since a band was writing and recording hard rock with as much soul, intellect, spontanaiety, and fun as Captain Zapped. These guys got the songs! Don’t take my word for it-go ask Mama Tequila.

….In chaotic and nightmarish times like this, we NEED good music, ya know?

Dirty Pearls drummer, Marty E. Concussion adds: “I loved Circus of Power when I was in junior high….and, for that matter, I still do.

They were a full-on, down and dirty, NYC band of bikers and bad-asses. They also knew how to carry a kickass tune. ‘Call of the Wild’, ‘Letters Home’, ‘Vices’, and ‘Junkie Girl’ always made the dark side of town sound very appealing.

They were the real deal.

I never met Alex Mitchell, but I always thought that he was a damn good frontman. I did happen to meet their guitarist, Ricky Mahler, in L.A. at the Rainbow. He was a cool motherfucker.”

Canada’s Trash Gallery possess the visceral, tribal, post-punk vibe of classic bands like the Cult, Smack, 39 Steps, and Spear Of Destiny, their frontman, Neen, had this to say about Alex Mitchell:

“It always takes an outsider to see the true ills of society, be it social or political….There are few Rock n Rollers that can make a social/ political statement sound hip and not take away the sheer power from the sonic assult on the senses…..That is a very difficult combination…The unfortunate marriage of heaviness with cheese-lyrics seem to plague the past, and even more, the present…But there are always those rare, exceptional, shining examples….One outsider who comes to mind is Alex Mitchell….He always managed to take the obvious scenarios and put a different spin on them and prick our consciences …The man clearly knew how to breathe life into a tired subject, making the band sound like it was always evolving….Yes, there are some great biker anthems, but it’s songs like “Needles” that always catch my attention…Songs of both revelations and lost relations, the underdog fighting to keep their world intact, that always do it for me….However..It is what it is…BIG, BAD, DOWNRIGHT GREASY, FULL THROTTLE, BOOT UP YER ASS, ROCK N ROLL!!

Alex..Keep the rubber side down and the steel side up, brother!”

Sal Canzonieri, of Electric Frankenstein, recalls “Between my old band The Thing in the 80′s, and the formation of Electric Frankenstein, in 1990, we used to check out Circus of Power when they were in NYC. The shows were great because they packed a raw punch with the melodic sounds of 80′s Hard Rock.”

SUGARBUZZ MAGAZINE: How’s life? What’s been goin’ on?

ALEX MITCHELL: Well, like Tony Soprano said “The hustle never ends…” We made this record and I think it’s the best thing I’ve done since ‘Vices’ so I’m on the hustle. I usually abhor promoting things, to me, it’s plastic and cheesy. I mean, I live in L.A. and that’s all I see around me is people hawking their bullshit and it makes me nauseous. At least we made a good product not some shitty sitcom or irritating hip hop wank. Did you see the MTV awards? My God…they could have used that footage in Clockwork Orange where they pin his eyes open and force him to watch the screen. Youwch! But the public eats that shit up, dumb me down, daddy. I’ve also been giving away socks, these striped numbers that I buy in Kmart. I do it to spread good vibes and happiness. I’m going to change the world, one sock at a time. I’ll be sending some for you and your family. Other than that, work is torture, I’m not in love but am happy, I get enough sex to keep me sane, I lift, I hang with Froobin, who is other worldly. Froobin is a wolf I rescued. I watch my sports teams- Dolphins, NY Rangers, NY Knicks, NY Yankees. I talk with my Mom a lot, my Father isn’t well and me and Mom have become best buddies, she’s one of my heroes.

SUGARBUZZ MAGAZINE: Tell me ’bout the making of the astonishing new LP!

ALEX MITCHELL: Well I was walking by my tv one day and I saw these black chicks getting down on the dance floor, some footage of old boogie-woogie shit from the fifties and these chicks were really baggin’ it, man, and I was like shake that fuckin pussy. And then I walked through to read my email and Billy had sent me a song, this metal/boogie ZZ Top thing and the song was written in five minutes. I called him up and said let’s quit fucking around and just do a hard rock record. After a coupla months we went into a studio in downtown L.A. and invited some musicians- we had ONE rehearsal and just went in and kicked it. I changed a coupla melodies on the spot, we brought in and electric violin player and that’s as weird as we got. Really kinda unconventional, though, nothing was worked out we just did it on the fly. We were feeling it. Billy is unreal on this album, he really goes for it. A friend of mine who worked up at Geffen until recently called me up a minute ago and said he had this party and all anyone wanted to listen to was ‘Shake That Pussy’. He said he played it like 30 times. People dig that song and it makes them want to hear the rest of the record. We’ve already started writing for the next one. It’s kinda like we’re getting out of our own way, and we don’t know what we’re doing, we’re just doing it. Like being in the zone or in the moment.

SUGARBUZZ MAGAZINE: Any live shows?

ALEX MITCHELL: Not playing any shows yet, we’re trying to put together a band right now, looking for players. We’re shooting a video for ‘Shake That Pussy’ in a coupla weeks, then it goes viral and I light my tools on fire! All Halloween orange and chim-a-ney red. I’m looking forward to laying; I feel reborn musically and lucky to be in the same business as Frank Sinatra and Iggy Pop. If I could dream up a band I’d take Billy, Johnny Thunders, Lemmy and Rat Scabies.

SUGARBUZZ MAGAZINE: What kinda music you listening to?

ALEX MITCHELL: Well the other day on Sirius they had a John Coltrane show and I listened to that for about four hours off and on. For me most of the new music is unlistenable. Today I listened to Queens Of The Stone Age, ‘Rocks’ by Aerosmith, Sleep, A Charles Bukowski reading called Hostage, Deadbolt, who I fuckin love, Roxy Music, Al Green, Janis Joplin, the Airplane, L7, Texas Tornadoes, Turbo Negro who I think are amazing too. All kindsa shit, I’m open. Some would say even loose!?!

SUGARBUZZ MAGAZINE:Where can the rock’n'roll people track down the new CAPTAIN ZAPPED disc, “Heavy For Your Head”?
ALEX MITCHELL: I know that you can get it on the Fb Captain Zapped page digitally and CDbaby hard copy plus I think it’s on all that Itunes stuff. You can’t miss it, it has a pic of my 70 Charger on the cover. The cover was done by accident, I uploaded a photo and it somehow got wacked out by the technical Gods and we liked it. Did I mention that Billy absolutely kills on this album? He deserves the recognition. He’s saving up to buy his very own spaceship! John Eder contributed a photo, he’s done Motley Crue, Monster Magnet and a buncha others. Jon Sharkey plays bass, Pete the Killer plays drums- well, all that info is inside. The hustle never ends!

SUGARBUZZ MAGAZINE: Where can the rock’n'roll people find your books? Have you read Zodiac Mindwarp’s book, “Fucked By Rock”?

ALEX MITCHELL: Wow, I forgot I wrote some books…you can get them at this place online called Lulu. I started a new one, it’s a horror story/comedy that takes place here in Topanga and no it’s not a true story about my life you fuckers! Haven’t read the Zodiac book, unfortunately I have no time to read anymore but hopefully that will change. I’m teaching Froobin to read, he loves Edgar Allen Poe. He also likes David Allen Coe, strange…

SUGARBUZZ MAGAZINE: Aren’t you in the midst of purchasing a new vehicle?

ALEX MITCHELL: Yes!!! 2002 Vette, if I can pull it together. I’m into the green movement but just can’t can’t get a Prius, sorry. I need to get my red Vette and pimp through the Valley like Dirk Diggler on espresso. To tell you the truth, with all the people that are seriously suffering in the world, I mean no food and water, refugee shit, I feel bad doing this but I’m doing it anyways. Maybe it’ll bring in tons of money somehow and I can spread it around. The best part of all of this is that I’m about 50 grand in debt. I just figure fuck it, roll the dice…

SUGARBUZZ MAGAZINE:What do you think of the Occupy movement and police state clampdown?

ALEX MITCHELL:Bad news up in Oakland. I don’t understand these police commissioners- everyone has a camera/phone, lawsuits cost the cities a ton of dough that they don’t have, they should just back up and let them do their thing. I knew it would happen in some cities/ countries, but like the shit in New York surprised me. But, in a convoluted way, brought national attention to the Occupy movement. I have been wondering for years when the shit was going to hit the fan, there are a bunch of pissed off people in this country/around the world and a lot of them are very smart and well organized. People go “well what are they protesting?” and I’m like, is your brain made of Jello? The world is run by assholes, greedy assholes. You bail out a bank and they give themselves zillion dollar bonuses while the people who bailed them out with their tax money get their houses foreclosed on. When I saw that pic of Wall street fat cats (and Kitties) drinking champagne on the balcony as they laughed at the marchers below them, it made me want to take a flamethrower to that joint, lucky for them I’m not that type. And neither are the people protesting. I’m surprised no one’s went off, though. Anyways to me it’s the biggest thing that’s happened in ages, I love it. I learned about it early on from you with your posts on Facebook because there was clearly a blackout on tv, the news channels are owned by by bizness, what do you expect. I wrote a letter to the NY Times shaming them for their confusion on how to/not to report the movement. Their own city! I laugh when fuckers say the Times is ‘liberal’- it’s to the right–like ALMOST EVERY NEWSPAPER!

SUGARBUZZ MAGAZINE: What’s next for CAPTAIN ZAPPED?

ALEX MITCHELL: We’re already writing for a new record, we’re shooting that vid and we’re trying to put together the right band. Billy is a fountain of ideas, he works really hard at coming up with stuff that he thinks I’ll like and he’s so damn easy to work with. It’s fun and we’re starting to get our footprint together, we know where we’re going with this shit.

SUGARBUZZ MAGAZINE: The music’s so animated, visual, atmospheric, picturesque. Do you have any interest in making movies, or writing for film?

ALEX MITCHELL: I do have some ideas for film, but right now, they’re just that. Music is on the front burner. I’ll tell you who I’m into- Harmony Korine. Just watched ‘Trash Humpers’ and thought it was genius. That guy is known for his shock value (like the first time you watch ‘Gummo’) but there’s so much more to his work- at least for me. Sadness, joy, a sweeping look at white poverty/trash culture, drugs, insanity, individuality…Love his crazy shit…I’d love to act in a movie, that would give me a kick. It’s on the bucket list. Watched ‘Boogie Nights’ again, wow what a film. Odd and great.

SUGARBUZZ MAGAZINE: Okay, all my rock’n'roll motherfuckers, brothers and sisters, and friends of the revolution, GO, Go, GO get the new CAPTAIN ZAPPED cd, and turn it up loud! We can change the world!